WSASEA Meeting Minutes

Tuesday January 21st, 2014

2:00pm – 4:30pm

Pacific Lutheran University

Present: Mike Grosso (President), Tommy Skaggs (Vice President), Kamara Brooks by phone (Treasurer), Eric Bender (Member-at-Large), Diana Baker (Webmaster), Danielle Richmond (Secretary)

The Vice President called the meeting to order at 2:07 pm.

Website: The board continued the discussion from previous meetings related to updating the WSASEA website. Diana (Webmaster) explained that she was able to clean up some parts of the website but not others due to issues with the coding for the website. The Columbia Basin College class was unable to work on the website in Fall Quarter but will hopefully have someone for Winter Quarter. ACTION: Kamara will connect with professor again regarding having a student create a new WASEA website.

The board also discussed the content of the website and whether some of it can be archived. However, the point was raised that with the high turnover in the board, it’s helpful to have content on the website for future board members to be able to easily access it. ACTION: Each board member should make a list of what they think should not be included on the WSASEA website by January 31st.

List Serve: So far the current and past webmasters have been unable to get the two newest board members (Danielle & Tommy) onto the WSASEA list serve. ACTION: Kamara will try to add these names by January 24th.

Spring Conference Planning: The board spent the majority of the meeting working on planning the Spring Conference coming up in May 2014.

  • Location: The Rainbow Lodge location is set and good to go.
  • The following ideas were discussed for sessions:
  • For one of the Round Tables, use a fish bowl to solicit questions from the attendees.
  • Another Round Table idea is to discuss Policies & Procedures at various institutions; perhaps Dear Colleague Letters and IFAP items could provide a jumping off point for conversations regarding institutional practices.
  • Mike suggested a discussion on doing internal audits; Danielle can also discuss her experiences from being externally audited by the Department of Education.
  • Danielle suggested doing a presentation on student supervisor trainings and student employee trainings.
  • An idea for a breakout session would be to split everyone up into Private schools and Public schools and have a discussion about State Work Study spending. The suggestion was made that WSAC be asked if it can host these two sessions.
  • The general discussion led by WSAC regarding State Work Study and the current state of things at the State seemed to go well last year and is recommended again for this year.
  • The board discussed whether a Federal update should be done this year. Those who do only student employment did not find last year’s presentation to be very useful because there was almost nothing about work study in the federal update. However, it might be necessary in order to be considered a professional conference so the final consensus was to have a federal update but to ask the presenter, Suzanne, if she can focus more on Federal Work Study. ACTION: Mike will contact Suzanne regarding doing the Federal update presentation.
  • The technology discussion was useful last year and the board agreed that it would be a good idea to do again.
  • The I-9 Presentation is the same each year and with so few new members, did not receive favorable reviews last year. The decision was made to not include it this year.
  • Mike suggested doing a Financial Awareness Presentation.
  • The board had a lot of energy around putting together a panel of current State Work Study employers to speak about the program, what they would like from schools, etc. This could be at the beginning of Day 3 to keep people from leaving early. The employers chosen would have to be willing to participate pro bono. ACTION: Each board member will come up with a list of employers and send it to Danielle to compile and then send out to the board for further discussion.
  • At a previous meeting the group had discussed setting up a big sister/big brother type programming pairing veteran student employment administrators with newbies. The board discussed whether a separate session to get this started should be set up.
  • The board discussed whether it was useful to still have the JLD round table discussion since the majority of schools who attend do not use the JLD funding. Kamara pointed out that for those schools who do use JLD funding, it is vital that the agenda include a discussion so that they can charge the conference fees to their JLD budget.
  • ACTION: Mike will check with Tori to see if she has any ideas for sessions that she would like to help present.
  • Keynote: The board discussed having an inspirational speaker for this year’s keynote address. ACTION: Danielle will reach out to Dr. Medina to find out his speaking fee and see if he could give a discount since WSASEA is a non-profit on a limited budget.
  • Gifts: The board debated what an appropriate gift would be for speakers. Kamara voiced concerns about making sure that what the board does is in alignment with the by-laws which says that all expenditures need to be considered of “general benefit to all members.” It’s important for WSASEA to recognize speakers but to do in a way that does not seem to excessive. More specifically, the board discussed doing something for Jeff and Marlena from WSAC for all of their support throughout the years. The consensus is that it would be better if the board pitched in personally rather than using WSASEA funds. The concern was raised regarding whether they would be allowed to accept a gift from us since they are state employees. Another idea discussed was to simply decorate their rooms as a show of appreciation. ACTION: Mike will contact WSAC HR regarding the limitations/restrictions on giving awards to WSAC members.
  • Theme: Eric presented two key ideas for a theme – Harry Potter houses and Game of Thrones houses. The board could give out points throughout the conference for people who speak up and do other things to be determined by Eric. This is a great idea but could be hard to execute during the various sessions. The importance of having a clear explanation at the beginning of the retreat for those unfamiliar with whichever series was picked was emphasized. The board agreed to move forward with either idea. The title “Game of Student Employment” was discussed to coincide with the house theme. ACTION: Eric will continue to brainstorm and report back with more details.
  • Agenda: The board discussed the need for clear titles on the agenda as some schools scrutinize it to determine whether it is worth the time and expense to send their staff. The start time was also discussed but it cannot be moved any earlier than 11am per lodge rules. Additionally, the agenda will show sessions as taking 1 hour but the speakers will be told that they have 55 minutes to allow for smooth transitions and small breaks between speakers. ACTION: Tommy will draft an agenda/schedule based on the boards discussion and send it out via email. ACTION: The board will agree upon a final agenda/schedule by February 14th.
  • Attendance: Kamara indicated that there are usually at least 25 attendees each year. ACTION: Mike will reach out to WFAFAA so that the Spring Conference can be publicized to that group in order to garner wider interest and perhaps more participants.
  • Registration: The board decided to use the same dates for registration as were used last year.

Student Employee of the Year: The WSASEA deadline for SEOTY will be the same as the WASEA deadline which is March 3rd. ACTION: Diana will include this information in the Winter WSASEA deadline. ACTION: Eric, Tommy, and Mike will read through the applications and decide who the winner is.

The meeting adjourned 4:20pm.